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The episodes *are* at the correct film speed of 24 frames per second, unlike nearly all R2 PAL film source releases.
Can you elaborate on how this has been achieved for this DVD set? As far as I know it's impossible.
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Was this series shot totally on film? I would've assumed it was like all British TV of the time period: exteriors shot on film, and studio-based scenes shot on videotape.
If that's the case, the videotaped bits would be playing back at the correct rate anyway. PAL speedup only concerns film.
These DVDs were probably mastered from the original PAL broadcast videotapes anyway, so they would play back at the same speed as originally broadcast. These PAL tapes were probably converted to NTSC tapes for broadcast on Showtime (rather than being converted from film elements), so that also could explain why no one notices any speed-up.
It's also possible that the film sections were
pitch-corrected, where the soundtrack is tweaked to sound right, although the footage still plays 4% faster. I remember reading in an old
DreamWatch Bulletin about the early CIC Video releases of
Star Trek The Next Generation and about how they went back and pitch-corrected the episodes either for the re-release or for later volumes. Network are known for doing a lot of restoration work to various titles.
Likely, though, the series was probably just mastered from the original tapes, and Showtimes tapes were probably converted from those rather than film (as that's a lot less expensive and is far more common for TV distribution), so the shows would've played at the same speed all along.
